I think we had an election where misinformation was being spread like wildfire and used to inflame passions to support a populist candidate against the mainstream academics / elite. But the divisions were already there and had been growing for decades; but they hit a turning point during the (very uneven) recession recovery where middle America saw wages and unemployment stagnate, while the top 10% of the country reaped almost all the rewards of the recovery in the form of stock market gains.
I think any other Democrat besides Hillary would have won easily; but a lot of Dems stayed home because they felt a shitty Trump presidency was better than setting a precedent for dynastic politics. I voted for her, but grudgingly for that reason — she’s totally qualified, she has the experience, but there are other people who are qualified and had the experience too; Hillary beat them in the primaries because lots of people owed her favors due to her influence with her husband. She ingratiated herself to the party elites (unelected “superdelegates” who cast a huge percentage of the votes that determine the candidate to represent the party) and won that way.
Hillary ran a tone-deaf campaign, but I think her loss really highlighted how the Democrats lost because they were basically telling people in rural areas that their problems weren’t really problems, and if they were smarter they could figure that out. The Dems need to realize that wealth inequality has disproportionately hit these rural areas, and all the issues we see with Trumpism (Nazis, racism, anti-immigrant sentiment) are essentially borne out of frustration that individuals feel they have less control over their lives than they used to.
I think any other Democrat besides Hillary would have won easily; but a lot of Dems stayed home because they felt a shitty Trump presidency was better than setting a precedent for dynastic politics. I voted for her, but grudgingly for that reason — she’s totally qualified, she has the experience, but there are other people who are qualified and had the experience too; Hillary beat them in the primaries because lots of people owed her favors due to her influence with her husband. She ingratiated herself to the party elites (unelected “superdelegates” who cast a huge percentage of the votes that determine the candidate to represent the party) and won that way.
Hillary ran a tone-deaf campaign, but I think her loss really highlighted how the Democrats lost because they were basically telling people in rural areas that their problems weren’t really problems, and if they were smarter they could figure that out. The Dems need to realize that wealth inequality has disproportionately hit these rural areas, and all the issues we see with Trumpism (Nazis, racism, anti-immigrant sentiment) are essentially borne out of frustration that individuals feel they have less control over their lives than they used to.